SALT LAKE CITY, Utah (KSL) – The McInnes family of Eagle Mountain, Utah has reason to celebrate this weekend after a very scary situation involving their dog.

Toby, a 1-year-old English Sheepdog poodle, leapt off a cliff at Gooseberry Mesa in Washington County Thursday afternoon and fell roughly 300 feet.

“The boys were right there with me; they saw him jump,” said Ben McInnes, Toby’s owner.

He thinks Toby may have seen something during their trail ride, prompting him to leap off the cliff.

“For a split second you hope that he landed on something, but I knew there was nothing over there,” Ben McInnes said. “It was awful. You could hear him sliding and bouncing and yelping.”

The McInnes family did the only thing they could think of and called search and rescue.

“When those things happen, we try and help them out. It’s not something we normally do, just going to rescue a dog, but it’s just the complication of: If we don’t, who else is going to try and get down to him?” said Deputy Darrell Cashin, with the Washington County Sheriff’s Office.

Cashin said rescuers worried any family members or bystanders who tried to reach Toby could be hurt in the process, and they wanted to prevent that.

“It was just the right thing to do,” Cashin said.

It’s estimated Toby fell 150 vertical feet, and then tumbled another 150 feet down the mountain. Mike Thomas was the first responder to reach the dog, and then carried the 75-pound animal up a very steep incline.